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President Donald Trump “didn’t really care” about opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling until a friend of his in the industry asked him to, he said during a speech Thursday.
Speaking to Republicans at the party’s annual retreat in West Virginia, Trump said he was convinced to put a provision in his tax bill that would open up part of the wildlife refuge to oil and gas companies after one phone call with a friend “who’s in that world and in that business.”
Recounting the phone call, Trump told lawmakers: “He said, Ronald Reagan, and every president, has wanted to get ANWR approved. And after that, I said, oh, make sure that’s in the bill. It was amazing how that had an impact, that had a very big impact on me… I really didn’t care about it and then when I heard that everybody wanted it, for 40 years they’d been trying to get it approved, I said make sure you don’t lose ANWR.”
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